Sometimes the little single purpose applications are the coolest to trick up your Mac. Today the Web site MacApper featured SlimBatteryMonitor , which is an excellent replacement for the standard battery monitor in the Apple menu bar. It takes up 70% less space than the standard battery monitor, but, with innovative use of color, is much more effective at showing the current status of the battery.

Definitely check it out. It is a great, free application. Also, the developer accepts donations thru Paypal.

Today Yazsoft introduced a new version of their software, Speed Download. According to their Web site, Speed Download 5 "continues to enhance and tweak the performance of Speed Download to ensure utmost reliability. Version 5 includes tons of key improvements, and is a recommended upgrade for all Speed Download customers."

So where is the PR meltdown? Let me tell you a little story. I am using Speed Download Version 4 from my MacHeist bundle purchase last month and am quite happy with the product. Today, when Speed Download starts, it tells me that there is a new update for the software and starts an automatic download. Turns out, that the update is NOT a free update and loads a demo version of the software. Moreover, it won't accept my MacHeist bundle license when I entered it.

After looking at the MacHeist forum site, I found out that the MacHeist Bundle License wouldn't work so I tried to downgrade back to Version 4. Guess what, the Version 4 on Yazsoft's Web site was also a demo software that wouldn't take the MacHeist bundle license, but now it wouldn't download at all. The trial period was expired. Now, I couldn't download at all! Luckily, I was able to save the day by restoring from Time Machine!

I found out something else while at the MacHeist forum site. Even though Yazsoft was giving their MacHeist customers a discounted upgrade fee as they did with other Version 4 customers, it was giving customers who bought the software since January 1st the upgrade for free. Despite assurances that the version that was bought last month with the MacHeist bundle was a full version --- later confirmed by MacHeist on the forum ---, Yazsoft decided to change the rules and consider its MacHeist customers as promo software customers, different from their other customers. Unlike Circus Ponies who clearly stated that their V2.0 product would not be a free upgrade for MacHeist customers, Yazsoft never clearly stated their intentions.

Consequently, the MacHeist forum is ablaze with unhappy customers that feel that they have been cheated. Moreover, in addressing their concerns, Yazsoft's responses have been very defensive and evasive. They have blamed MacHeist for the misunderstanding and have pretty much alienated more than 40,000 new customers from the MacHeist bundle. One can follow the entire situation at the MacHeist forums. Moreover, the bad publicity is now spreading into the mainstream Mac bloggers (see Macmerc.com).

Whether or not it was an unethical business practice (bait and switch comes to mind) or simply incompetent marketing, this is a clear case of how NOT to do marketing in today's web marketing world. Yazsoft should have been upfront with the status of the MacHeist customers during the bundle sale. Now they face the need to make a drastic change in their policy or risk permanently destroying their reputation with a broad vocal group within the Mac user community.

One of the coolest ways to pimp your Mac is to use Gelaskins on it. Gelaskins are super low-profile skins for your Apple (or other PC) laptop computer. They come with an advanced 3M adhesive that makes them cleanly removable if you want to change the art. I wouldn't recommend changing out your skins on a daily basis, though.





They claim it is for protection purposes and, while it does protect against scratches, it only protects the top of your computer due to heat flow issues. Nevertheless, if you want to get noticed at the coffee shop while surfing the Internet, this is definitely the way to go!

They come with various types of artists; both traditional from Monet to Hokusai and new young artists such as Nathan Ota and Aya Kato. The skin on my MacBook Pro is The Great Wave Off Kanagawa from Katsushika Hokusai. It is part of his famous Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji wood block series from around 1831. Hokusai is world-renown as the best at Japanese woodblock printing; also known as ukiyo-e. In fact, his work was very enthusiastically collected by French impressionists, such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec.

Finally, if you looked closely at the photo, you will see that my 3rd Generation iPod Nano is also tricked out with a Gelaskin. Yes, they have them for iPods, iTouchs and iPhones, too! It is a skin of work from a young artist in Los Angeles, named Nathan Ota. His illustrations are very cool!